BARE BONES: COCAINE BEAR (2023)

COCAINE BEAR (2023)

Comic horror takes place in 1985 and is based on a real-life incident where a bear did ingest an awful amount of cocaine. Here a drug smuggler drops his load over a national park where it is found and eaten by a large black bear. Driven deliriously crazy, now addicted and on the hunt for more, the creature kills anyone that crosses its path. A group of characters are put in harm’s way including kids playing hooky Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) and Henry (Christian Convery), Dee Dee’s worried mom (Keri Russell), drug lord Syd (Ray Liotta) and his two lackeys (O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Alden Ehrenreich), and a cop on Syd’s trail (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) to name a few.

 

Fact based comedy/horror is directed by Elizabeth Banks from a script by Jimmy Warden and is a bit disappointing considering the great premise it has to work with. There are a couple of bloody fun sequences, especially a hilarious and over-the-top scene involving an ambulance and it’s unsuspecting EMTs. Most anything with the bear is gory and amusing, but it’s the stuff in-between with the human characters that is directed very by the numbers and lacks the same wit or manic energy. The dialog sequences drag. Banks had a great idea in producing this absurd but partially true story but maybe should have handed directing and scripting reins over to someone who had a better sense of how to handle this type of flick. It needed someone who could take the ball and run with it whereas Banks really only cuts completely loose in the ambulance scene which is the best part of the movie. It needed filmmakers with a more bonkers sense of humor and more comfortable ‘going there’ with the ludicrous plot. It felt like Warden just didn’t have the devious wit to really do the material justice and Banks was holding back when she should have taken this to the absurd levels the story demands. It’s still a worth a look. There is fun to be had. But considering what other filmmakers could have done with it, like Deadstream‘s Vanessa and Joseph Winter for example, it’s a bit of a disappointment instead of the real blast of blood-soaked fun it should have been. Still cool that in this day and age a movie like this got made by a major studio and got a major theater release.

 

-MonsterZero NJ

REVIEW: SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (2018)

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY (2018)

(Remember, clicking the highlighted links brings you to other reviews and articles here at The Movie Madhouse!)

Latest Star Wars flick is an unnecessary origin story for iconic pilot Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich). It gives us brief glimpses of his life as a street thief, to his days as an imperial trooper, to meeting Chewbacca and finally his start as a smuggler, including his legendary Kessel Run. And as far as a story, that’s kinda it.

Written by Jonathan and Lawrence Kasdan, the film was a troubled production that saw original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller leave the project to be replaced by Ron Howard, who did a lot of re-shoots. While the resulting film is not the mess one might anticipate, it’s also an underwhelming flick that never finds it’s footing, or feels like the making of a legend it should. First problem is that actor Alden Ehrenreich never evokes Han Solo. If not for Chewbacca standing by his side and eventually getting in the pilot seat of the Millennium Falcon, he could be any generic space hero. Secondly, with all the iconic moments that are presented, such as getting his name and his gun and meeting his famous furry co-pilot, none of them are presented with much weight. The story also seems to be a bunch of set pieces strung together and thus we have no emotional involvement as the rebooted Han goes from place to place, meeting scoundrels like Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), villains like Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany) and his sweetheart turned criminal arm-piece Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke). It’s almost like they were making it up as they went along. None of it has any emotional resonance and aside from a few fun action scenes, none of it is very memorable. It rarely feels like a Star Wars film though having a bit of a different look and a grittier tone, was, at least, refreshing.

The cast all try hard, but no one really shines in what probably was a difficult shoot. As stated, Alden Ehrenreich never evokes the legendary character he plays and is a bit too much of a pretty boy to be the space pirate we all know and love. Harrelson phones in his Tobias Beckett, which is a shame as Woody is usually the one to add life to a movie. Clarke is pretty, but doesn’t generate much heat or make her character very memorable. She’s a generic love interest trying and failing to be a bit of a femme fatale. Her character just comes off as flat. Bettany is also very bland as villain Vos. He could be a generic gangster from any movie. The only person who generates some life is Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian and he, sadly, isn’t given all that much to do.

So, it’s not quite the disaster early word was predicting, but is still disappointingly mediocre. Rebooting a character this iconic has to be done just right…like J.J. Abrams Star Trek casting. Here Alden Ehrenreich falls short. The rest of the cast, Glover aside, phone in their performances and the story is too thin to get one emotionally involved. There is some fun action, though the film fails to make it’s iconic moments…well, iconic. A disappointing attempt to prequelize one of cinema’s most beloved scoundrels.

-MonsterZero NJ

  2 and 1/2 Millennium Falcons.